My bellydancing instructor keeps talking about the pelvic floor, and she mentioned that I must have a good one. It seems kind of strange to have a woman whose name I cannot even remember complimenting me on my pelvic floor, especially when I am not entirely sure where that is. Is my pelvic floor a specific spot, or is it a general location like my abdomen?

Apparently, according to my instructor, strengthening my pelvic floor is also the reason we're taking bellydancing classes. I had no idea. The posters said nothing about that when they were advertising the class. The co-worker with whom I am taking the classes did not approach me in the office saying you know what? I was thinking about my pelvic floor today, and it's feeling a bit lax, you know? How's yours? I thought that we should whip these deflated balloons into shape with some bellydancing classes! Whadaya say?

All together now, to the tune of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"!

The lax and flabby pelvic floorjust lay there all depressed.It didn't know its purpose.It was truly vexed,and then it learned to bellydanceand became truly fit.Now the once lax and flabby pelvic floorhas moves that will not quit.

I was looking back through old entries yesterday in order to establish exactly how long I have had lesser and greater degrees of The Sniffles™, and I found out that on April the 14th I was bitching about the fact that I had been sick for a week, which at the time, I thought was ungodly. That was one month and three days ago, which means that I have been oozing snot for one month and ten days. I was so naïve such a short time ago.

I started taking loratadine yesterday, but the doctor told me that it might take a week before the swelling from my postulated allergies goes down, so I haven't noticed any relief yet. For some reason, I'm not really buying this allergies theory, because I've tried taking Ben@dryl, Re@ctin, and Cl@ritin, and none of them has had any effect. Of course, I have not taken more than one or two doses of any of them, so I suppose I don't have the authority to write off the possibility of multiple allergies yet.

What I find really annoying is that yet again I have gone to a doctor who looked at me for approximately five minutes after first meeting me and then promptly gave me a diagnosis without calling for any tests. Apparently I'm allergic. He deduced that I am allergic to airborne particles because one member of my family sneezes near fields of mustard. Going by his logic, I don't know anyone who could claim not to be allergic to airborne particles, seeing as how everyone seems to be closely related to someone who is.

I am fascinated by how easy I am to diagnose with shit. No, really. Over several doctors, none of who knew me for more than an hour or administered any tests, I have been diagnosed with allergies, paranoid schizophrenia, manic depression, schizoid affective disorder, staphylococcus infection of the face, dangerously low levels of carbon dioxide, and a possible tumour on my pituitary. Two doctors have thought my tonsils were removed when they are indeed still intact. If the doctors had their way, I'd be this guy:

Sometimes I feel like I am that guy.

My reason for being less than convinced that I definitely have such severe allergies all of a sudden or that I have a long-winded virus or that I have been invaded by bacteria is because I think this whole mess could be psychologically based. I have, once again, allowed stress to creep up on me. It was so stealthy, aside from a few subtle burps and hissing noises, that I discounted it as being all in my head; I wasn't even aware of it's steady stalking.

Yesterday, the Fiery One took me out for a cheese-laiden, gravy-on-fries type of affair in order to try to make me happy, and all I could do was expunge the twisted sorrow of my stress upon the table. I honestly didn't know how much of it there was until I found myself sitting there with moist eyes wishing to gawd that our meals would come already so that I could find an excuse to stop talking about it.

It was a great experience, though, and I'm not being sarcastic about that. A million flashbulbs exploded in my head. Depression, exhaustion, ongoing physical ills, concern over the possibility of a psychological meltdown: these are all common indicators of stress in a Schmutzie. We Schmutzie's are indeed rare, and so sometimes complexities associated with our breed can be difficult to detect. I am not spiralling down into Somewhere Evil. Or rather, I don't have to spiral down into Somewhere Evil because I'm not completely clueless about why I started slipping so dramatically.

I have already started taking matters into my own hands today. This morning, I put into motion an action that should alleviate a major cause of some of my stress, and so already I feel like I am more in control. I should seriously be outfitted with a small alarm system and flashing lights that are calibrated to go off when my skin temperature and heart rate leave the normal range for more than five minutes. That way, weeks ago when this all started happening and I was too obtuse to figure it out, the red lights would have started flashing and the little alarm would have made little whoop! whoop! noises, and I would have known to sit down for a second and work it out then.